A pretty good week!

pictures- The one with 6 sisters is at zone conference last week in Etobicoke. It's just a few of the sisters in the parking lot at the chapel. Spot a familiar face? Sister Ence is the one we met in st. george back in September/october.
Also Vivian and her daughters Allegra and Chancey. Chancey is hamming it up. haha Vivian doesn't look too excited, i'm not quite sure why! haha Notice how it's in front of the baptismal font doors- we were showing her the font, of course!
And a picture of us bowling last Pday.


Anyways...this past week was a pretty good one. We were able to meet with Vivian a couple of times and at church on Sunday we were showing her the baptismal font and a member came in and was like, "hey Vivian! You're getting baptized! When is the date?" I just looked at her and waited for her response cuz we wonder the same thing! Every day. She said, "soon, it's soon." Sooooo how soon? Hopefully this sunday? :) Who knows if SisW and I will be here next transfer! It's possible but ya never know. We're really working with her though! She told us if she doesn't come to church, Allegra will cry. She's 9 and we asked her if she wants to be baptized and she said yes, then Chancey (who is 7) yelled,"That's not fair! I wanna be baptized too!" haha So hopefully Allegra and Vivian will be baptized together- soon.
Before a family moved out of the ward and to Utah we went to say bye and asked them to hand over some referrals because they'll never see these people again- they gave us 3 and we went to see one the a couple of days ago. She told us she was Catholic and wasn't really interested but we kept talking and found out she was a genealogist! We told her about our family history class on wednesday nights and she got super excited, we're teaching her this wednesday! I've learned that a lot- most times people will say they're not interested but as you start just talking and relating to them they become really open. You smile really big and just be really friendly and by the end they're totally open to meeting with you. It's happened a couple of times now. We're learning (SisW and I) how to be missionaries together. Who could resist a couple of faces like ours?
Last Monday was a fun Pday. We ate out at Swiss Chalet (a restaurant here in canada) and went bowling- as you can see. It was a really warm day and it was fun to just get out and do something different.
Zone Conference was really good. Elder Duncan and his wife came (He's president of the 1st quorum of 70 i believe) and they like to shake everyones hand and talk to you for a second before the meeting starts. He told me that his family used to live in St. George. He talked about concerns we had, how to work with spirit, exact obedience and some other good stuff. :) After the meeting we took a big picture outside with everyone. Hopefully a copy of it will be getting sent around! We shook his hand goodbye and he was talking to just sis W and I and he said, "I noticed both of you were really in tune the entire time, you're great!" Something like that, but it was pretty neat to be told we're awesome by someone so "up there" haha How could you not be in tune the whole time? I'm going to have a whole new appreciation for General Conf next week! Weird how that's the type of things I look fwd to now. Oh, i forgot the best part. I forgot my nametag! On our way there i looked down and i didn't have it on. So i wore sisW and covered it with my hair. I told Sister Scott (mission pres wife) and she laughed and said, "i've done that too- it always happens on the important days too!"

Well, it should be interesting to see if we stay another transfer. Sister missionaries only have 13 transfers and I have 10 left! Another in Oakville? If so we'll be moving into our new apartment then. March flew by! I can't believe it's amost April! Thanks for everything- love and miss you!
Sister Messer

Contacting Contacting Contacting...

Hello!

Well this week was another week calling a lot of former investigators and setting up appointments. We figure there is a reason we found over 100 former investigator sheets in a file folder in the bookcase so we're contacting all of them! We have gotten quite a few appointments and investigators from doing that. Hopefully some of them are interested! We walked a lot this week because it's been so warm and sunny, talking to people along the way. Street contacting in Oakville is really not very successful. There are a lot of very wealthy people around here. We were going through old baptismal records- the last baptism for the Oakville ward was in July! Plus all the baptisms in the last couple of years have all fallen inactive except for one. Not cool, eh? But we did get a new ward mission leader yesterday! He is great! His name is Brother Taylor and he just got released from the stake high council when the stakes split. Him and his wife are from the states! :) He works for General Mills and so he travels a lot but maybe he can supply Cheerios for us ;) haha They have a daughter on a mission in Arizona. They're very missionary minded and his wife is the Primary President. He's got some great ideas, hopefully this will help get the ward involved and some baptisms in the works!

One of our investigators came to church yesterday with her two girls. We have talked to her a lot about baptism and she said she will tell us when she is ready. It's pretty frustrating, but we continue to work with her. We've been able to help her a lot in the last few months and i know she'll get baptized...i just would love to be here when she does :) Her 9 year old daughter asked for an english Book of Mormon yesterday...maybe she'll get baptized before her mother does! haha We have been making some good progress with her though. She always says she's too tired to pray when we're there but on Saturday she said a very nice prayer! It was in french...but i understood the words "Christ" and "missionaries". that's good enough for me!
We've been focusing on less active families too. We were at a family's house last week and they have a son who is 18 and he came downstairs and talked a little bit with us...he said he was preparing to go on a mission and getting ready for that and that he wanted to go. After he left his mom (who has a strong testimony) said, "that's the first time i've ever heard him say that!" she was shocked! Yesterday he was ordained as a priest! He really is working towards a mission. So even if we don't see baptisms in oakville, hopefully we helped some other people.
Today we aren't going to the CN Tower. SisW wants to wait until she's got some more money because it costs like 30$ to go to the top. But some day....SOME DAY! Even if i have to come back in like ten years. I will reach the top :) But Sis Doehring, a member from Lindsay is coming to take us to lunch and stuff. SisW knew her from her last area and established a great relationship with her. She comes down every once in a while and we have a good time with her.
To answer your question about the different races and prejudice people---i don't see any of that. I really don't think i've ever heard one prejudice remark. People here just come from all necks of the woods.
We talked to a lady the other day who's car was broken down in the middle of the street. I think she was glad not to be awkwardly standing there alone.
No, i haven't heard from any of my BYUI friends. Maybe some of them read my blog? WRITE ME dang it! ;) I do hear from Corinne A LOT! she is in a spanish speaking area in New Mexico but she's speaking English! She says she writes down her testimony or prayers in spanish and reads it. haha her Mission pres said he knows she is supposed to be there, not learning spanish...crazy, eh?!
This week we have a zone conference in Etobicoke (JoeyVotto in the house!) and next week we have a sisters conference in Brampton at the mission home! All the sisters in our mission are traveling down and we get to love it up i guess. Both should be awesome! Can you believe the end of March is approaching? i can't! Thank you for your prayers!!!
Love Sister Messer

For those BYUI friends Sister Messer's address is:

Sister Austriana Messer
Canada Toronto Mission
197 County Court Blvd Suite 203
Brampton, ON
L6W 4P6
Canada

pictures: A great family in the ward (Madsons) moved to Utah this week so we went over to say bye and they gave us a TON of food. That was a blessing! haha But for real, it was so magnificent we took a picture with it!
SisW and I were bored driving to Oakville one evening so we took some great pictures...

A bit better than last week

Hello everybody!
This week went a bit better than last. holla! We dropped some of those "golden investigators"..i think dad took the words right out of my mouth when he said it's hard when those "golden investigators are bronze at best" however, they turned out to be more 'rusty nail' than anything. We dropped them...didn't care to progress-said they had been "looking for the true church for 40 years!" Alas, the promise that if they read and prayed about the BOM last week they would get their answer was not taken seriously.
Good news with another though! She came out to church yesterday! With her 2 girls! She even found her own ride! That's a huge milestone. We had left her alone for all of last week and called her on Friday and she was so excited to hear from us. She said, "i'm coming to church on Sunday and i'll call you if i need a ride!" She was a little late so we were thinking it wasn't going to happen but then she walked in! Good thing we saved a spot for her! Her daughters loved primary, at the end of church they were walking around everywhere and i was like, "are you going to come back next week?" and they both really wanted to. So that is so great! She is realizing how important this is and hopefully we'll be able to extend a date to her this coming week.
We also had an appt with another family. They have been taught SO MUCH. Missionaries hadn't been back to visit in over 5 years. We had a really powerful lesson about following Christ and baptism- set a date for April 1 for the father and his son. (the rest of the family wasn't home) But he said, "if i get baptized, my whole family is getting baptized." We're like...no problemo! They have 2 boys-one is 9 and he was playing with his DS at the beginning and he was taking pictures of us! it was so funny, he was holding it up all sly and then when he pushed the button it made a camera taking noise and his eyes got really big and his dad looked at him like what the heck are you doing? haha he continued to take pictures with the sound off.
We got approved by the AP's to go the CN Tower! So next Pday i think we're gonna go! sweet, eh? We're excited. Mississauga is real close to Toronto and I can see the CN tower almost every day way out in the distance- it's HUMONGOUS! In fact, we were visiting a less active and she lives on the top of a tall apartment building in Oakville and I said, "can you see the Cn tower from your deck?" and we were looking and I found it way out in the distance and she got really excited and was like, "thank you so much for showing me that! It really inspires me!" It was weird though because I thought about it while we were talking to her earlier and I wasn't going to say anything and I kept thinking- i should ask her, i should ask her and like noooo that's stupid. But I brought it up while we were getting up to leave and it really made her day. I don't know why...but she got super excited. Odd prompting, eh?

Well, thanks for all the pics- hope i had some to send to you but i don't...i need to take more pictures! I'll be better at that!
Love Sister Messer

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ARNIE!

I miss you & and all of your funny faces.

Love ya!

*no worries, this post was made a long time & scheduled for today :)

Discouraging week!

Hello!

Well today is a much needed Pday. This week was a poopy one. But you still gotta find blessings out of it right? and we definitely have had our fair share of blessings. Here's the latest with our gators. (investigators)

Laura was doing so well! She cancelled our appt this week because she is busy with work. She said she would continue to read and call us if she had any questions. I'd be real concerned about her but if she's ready, she's ready. The only hope is that she did answer when we called her and returned our text. haha There could still be hope! I surely hope so because she is a really great girl.

Another family also cancelled our appt because they "were going to church". nice, eh? So we are rescheduling this week.

Another sister.. Our ward mission leader had a cottage meeting at his house. (never hear of that until i got here but it's basically fhe) and we talked to her and she wanted to come but had to work. So we got her a ride and he picked her up from work, was going to take her to her house to get her kids and then take her to milton for the cottage meeting. Well, she was really tired and didnt really want to go but ended up going anyways. Her girls didn't come and everyone else going to the cottage meeting cancelled last minute. In her culture it's very scary for them to get in a car with someone they don't know and she expressed that concern to us. Makes sense-don't blame her. But she waits to tell us things like that after it's happened like 5 times already. So there are some communication problems and we're at a loss. It was a really awkward evening. luckily the meeting went alright and that day is in the past.

We don't have any baptism dates set. I think that's why this week has been kind of hard. We feel discouraged sometimes because we don't see our hard work turning into anything very often. But we have some good appointments this week and hopefully whatever the Lord needs us to learn from this we will learn :) Oakville is teaching us patience and teaching us to rely on the Lord...all while testing our faith, i suppose!

We did pick up two new gators though. From the stack of former investigators we found, we called them and they were excited to meet. Mr & Mrs Longman are in their 50s or 60s. They're the sweetest couple and are from Pakistan and India. They met with missionaries over 20 years ago and he said he's "been looking for the truth for 40 years". We promised them that if they read the BOM this week and sincerely prayed about it that they would receive the answer they 've been looking for. I called and talked to Mr. Longman last night and he was like, "is this sister messer?!" and was excited to talk haha he said he'd been reading about planting a seed and nourishing it. So i told him how that can apply to him and he said and i was reading Alma 36 about Alma too! he is such a talker but i told him how repentance and baptism can bless his life and how as we turn to Christ we can find that path that leads to happiness and he was dead silent. It was actually a pretty cool experience. They would be really great members and I really hope there's something we can do differently than the missionaries in the past that will prick their hearts.

 The pioneer trek sounds like an AWESOME experience! Dad said over 1000 people were there that day at st. thomas, that's sweet! 

So we were visiting a less active lady this week and she looks at me and her eyes get really big and she says, "You look like sara fergusson!!! When she married Prince" ---(whatever his names is) haha i was like...really? Aren't her daughters the ones that wore the ugly hats to the royal wedding? haha I have never gotten that one before.

We should be moving out of our house in Mississauga on april 1. We were approved for the appt by Lake ontario! So that should be pretty cool. That's also the same day as transfers...so that will be interesting. Make sure if you send anything towards the end of march that you send it the mission office address instead.

Well, pray that success happens this week! :)

sister messer